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another, b) contribute in some way to the meaning of the whole word. Ex: attack, stack, tackle, taxiall have a syllable tack but tack doesnt have meaning. Morphemessmallest unit of meaning (helpfulness-3 morphemes); unClintonish Length does not determine it, e.g. catamaran, knickerbocker ( 1 morpheme) Tenths (1 syllable, 3 morphemes)
Clintonish) look at the 2 columns: a (free morphemes); b (both bound) a. Read-able En-large Perform-ance White-ness Dark-en b. Leg-ible audi-ence magn-ify obfusc-ate applic-ant
(audible, auditory,audition, audience) Two kinds of complex words: -- ones with a single root; (1a) -- ones with a single bound root (1b) Can a word contain more than one root? Yes
driver) Can a word contain two or more bound roots? Yes (electrolysis, electroscopy, microscopy, microcosm, pachyderm, echinoderm) One bound and one free root ( microfilm, electrometer, Sino-Japanese) The above examples are called combining forms. Photo, macro, micro, retro are examples of combining forms that have gained freedom and have become free morphemes.
pronunciations called allomorphs, choice determined by context. How are the plurals of most English nouns formed? Examples: cats, dogs and horses; the {s} suffix has three allomorphs. [s]- cats, lamps; [z]- dogs, days; [Iz]- horses, judges
(hissing or hushing sound) use the [Iz] allomorphs; b) preceding sound is voiceless, no vibration of the vocal folds (cat, rock, cup, cliff) [s] allomorph is used; after a vowel or voiced consonant (dog, day) [z] allomorph is used. -ed has [t], [d], [Id] Phonology may influence the choice of allomorphs of a morpheme. Grammar and vocabulary Exception to this rule wife and loaf (wives, loaves)restricted to certain nouns and occurs before the plural suffix s but not before other morphemes)
reread, repaint, revisit. [ri] as in revive,return,restore,revise,reverse [re] and [ri] are allomorphs.
3.6 Conclusion
Chp 3 discusses the following distinctions:
-- morphemes and allomorphs, bound and free -- roots, affixes and combining forms ---prefixes and suffixes Allomorphy does have a role in the identification of morphemes, and hence in the issue of whether a word should be regarded as polymorphemic or not.